Two Days Slow
by Artemis Silver96
Summary: The REAL sequel to "Grammar Lessons", and an emotional response to tonight's "Lady of the Lake". It's the hardest thing I've ever done- just waiting and doing what was right. And I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I hate myself for who I am, what I've become. Passive. I can't go to you, because I know what it would be. In which Jefferson contemplates, and does.


******Okay, guys, a little disclaimer:  
If you know my other story about the STUNNINGLY FLAWLESS Jefferson, you'll notice that I've deleted it, and here's why:**

**I wrote that story in confidence that OUAT wouldn't address Jefferson or Grace again, and I took it upon myself to create my own ending for them, because they deserved that much, didn't they? **

**Then when I saw last night's episode, I had the most insane feels, I had to write about them again! So I made an educated decision and took down "The Editing Process", and quite honestly, I think it was for the best. **

**That being said, sit back, relax, enjoy, and here's the real Part II of "Grammar Lessons", "Two Days Slow"!**

**(Can anyone guess where the quote came from?)**

**Oh, and feel free to review? Maybe?...**

**Part II: Two Days Slow**

_"Why, I can't go back to yesterday, because I was a different person then."_

_ -Lewis Carroll, __**Alice in Wonderland**_

I didn't. I couldn't. (Damned informal language, damned contractions.) It all seemed so real: the lightened dreams of you, what I thought was, everything as it should have been. But I could not. Would not. Should have. Ought to have.

Am I wrong? Was I wrong?

Obviously.

I was wrong. I shouldn't have left you then, and I shouldn't have stayed away. I had to. I had to. Hadtohadtohadtohadto. Get back to you. Get it to work.

How could I – I left you all alone, alone and unprotected in a world neither of us, that no one could ever fully understand.

It's the hardest thing I've ever done- just waiting, looking, doing what was right. And I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I hate myself for who I am, what I've become. Passive. I can't go to you, because I know what it would be. Submissive. She'll hurt you if I try. And I'll hurt you if I try. I know I will. I left you. (Get it to work).

I left you alone and I'm so, so sorry. I didn't know- I couldn't have. I just wanted you to have everything, you see? I wanted you to be everything, to be who you deserved to be. You deserve better, and I just wanted-. I didn't want you to be alone. I wanted so much to stay with you. I wanted so much to stay with you. I wanted so much to stay with you. I wanted so much to stay with you-

Excuses, excuses, excuses! They pile up in sheets and walls: stone, brick, iron. I can't get to you because it would hurt you. Now, I can't get to you because I'm trapped. I did this to myself, really. I can't get to you but I tried, (I TRIED I PROMISE), and I love you, I need you, I need you to know that I love you, because you deserve that and so much more.

I watched you for years, living in oblivious happiness, each day agonizingly the same as the last. I watched and waited while you lived your little life, over and over, birthdays, holidays, another life, another world. I wish I'd stayed. I wish I'd listened to you, and your innocent wisdom, sweetheart. You were (are) beautiful. Stay like that. Please. Never change. Never change, but grow. Please. Grow strong, branch outwards, to the world that needs you.

You hate me. I know you do. How could you not? I abandoned you to go away in the woods, a fragile little girl wrapped in a flowered cape to fend off the world. I watched as I let you go away, as I left you to the mercy of a world (worlds) far more cruel and vicious than we could ever understand.

I understand now. But you certainly despise me and it's far too late. Your picture, though it is beautiful to me, does nothing to show the madness, the cruelty of mine to leave you alone. I'm sorry, Grace.

Again, leave it to a child to spell everything out too beautifully and simply. Maybe. Maybe I was right. Or wrong. I can't give you nothing. I can love you, I can be sorry. And maybe that's enough for now. I can give you the truth. I can try. I can do all of these things not because I'm mad, but because I am Jefferson, and Jefferson has a daughter that knows and is looking for him. And all I have to do is go, walk, find you finally.

I've spent too long in quiet desperation to be anything other than ordinary. Now, though, I feel different. Because for me it is different to feel normal, to be just another perfect, perfectly normal man going to pick up his daughter from the bus stop. It isn't normal. Maybe nothing ever will be.

Despite myself, to spite myself, perhaps, I can let myself look at you. The other children spill off the bus in an influx of small feet and wide smiles. They run to warm homes with parents that love them, parents that can love them. Am I one of them, one of those parents, one of those people?

I'd recognize you if it were foggy and you were a hundred and twenty seven miles away. I'd know you from the back of your knee, a lock of your hair, the tip of your nose. I'd know you anywhere. That is my curse, you see. I see you, saw you, want you, wanted you, need you, needed you, love you, loved you everywhere, anywhere, nowhere. Here. There. Never. Ever. Always. Forever.

And now, here you are, walking away, blissful. Can I disrupt that? Even seeing you now, it helped. I can let you go. It might be for the best.

"Grace."

Maybe it isn't.

You stop. They don't notice. They don't notice you, don't notice me, overwhelmed in a paisley scarf and a black pea coat. Please forgive me. Aren't you cold?

You look at me and I look at you. We regard each other with similar eyes, you and I. My baby.

"Papa!"

When you're running towards me, everything could be alright. When I'm holding you again, forever, ablaze with latency and unadulterated bliss, everything is fine. It doesn't matter. You're here and you're you, and you see me for what I am, what I've done. I'm here, and I'll always be.

"You found me, I knew you would!"

My arms tighten around you as you bury your little face into my shoulder. I can't bear to break the moment, lose grasp of you and your perfection, so I don't. I don't have to if I don't want to, and I love you, so I won't.

Everything I did, I did for you. Does that make it all right? Does it matter now? Nothing does. Only you, and you're more than nothing, more than something, more than the grand "everything" that seems to surround and make up what we've become.

"Grace."

"Papa."

That is all I need. All I needed, it turned out, was you. I'm so sorry.

I'm not crazy. I never was crazy. I never will be crazy.

I'm more than that. Just as she's more than Ruby and he's more than David, and she's more, so much more than the unaware Paige. I'm more than who I'm meant to be. We all are.

I'm meant to be with you, and you with me.


End file.
